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Forum:Changing the deletion policy
Hi, this is Slicer. Forgot the email to the last account, so back on this one now. I wrote some of the policy a while back, in an obsessive effort to organize and homogenize this hodgepodge of a wiki. In retrospect it seems the stub/wikification rules (which currently require improvements to a page within two weeks, or else it'll be deleted) were a bit too harsh. This is an argument I made over a year ago, and the situation doesn't seem to have changed. is still filled with short pages deleted just because they're short. I think it would be better to instead move WIP pages off the mainspace to user subpages and combine short ones with larger pages (say, "Toa Eton" with "List of Toa"). The rationale is that constantly deleting pages not only has the potential to drive off new members and create more ugly redlinks, but also contributes do a destructive atmosphere. What do y'all think about this? Kneeler (talk | ) Here's my take on this. Deleting actually does not harm the wiki, especially if it is the pruning of old articles. As for this stub and two weeks notice, I find the system is fair, the execution is not. I was considering creating a suggestion about overhauling the stub template, so it includes the following: *The requirements for it to not become a stub, that is, a minimum of 2,000 bytes. *A link to the history of the page, so new users can see how big their page actually is. *A reassurance that this template will be immediately removed by another user once it reaches 2,000 bytes. It would also help for another wiki user or staff member to leave a heads-up on the newcomer's talk page. We're already always welcoming users and I have seen some people give friendly reminders about this, but we could make that more common. In general, more communication is key. A final warning message on the talk page of the user should also be made, or maybe a "stubdeletion" template to replace the normal stub template when it's getting close to the deadline. Some form of notification, maybe. We're on top of stubs as it is, and the nature of this kind of wiki means we will be continually dealing with these kinds of pages. So yeah. Talk | Stories'' '' I also think we need better communication so people don't leave one-sentence articles we have to mark and delete afterwards. Plus, there's a lot of trash here that should be burned and forgotten... We just don't need all these pages nobody cares about, but we should keep some well-intentioned articles. Also, ditto everything ChineseLegolas just said. I don't think this "taking out the trash" attitude is necessary. If a page is badly-written or incoherent, fine. That's the owner's problem, no one else's. If necessary the content can be moved off the mainspace to a user subpage (User:TedBundy/Stuff) but not deleted unless they're almost completely empty. Yet this old page was just deleted despite being over a hundred words long and having multiple content sections as well as proper templates. I'm sure there were many similar articles that are now gone. This is part of the reason I made this thread, because I'd restore these if I were an admin. There's no real demand for pruning other people's pages because we think the wiki deserves better. It's not being done in the name of organization, which was the original goal of having a wiki-wide style policy (by replacing templates such as Template:Character Infobox in favor of BS01-like designs like Template:Character for example). It's just an anti-clutter system. I consider it misguided because the "clutter" that's being trashed doesn't necessarily need to be. And the cost of potentially alienating new users, especially if this wiki is going to have a Wikia spotlight soon, outweighs the benefits. Kneeler (talk | ) The Wikia definition of a stub article is something below 200 bytes. As for your concerns, I know for sure that there has been some discussion on redefining the CBW's definition of stubs. Talk | Stories'' '' '' Since there's no clearly defined standard, I'm hoping that deletion of more pages can be postponed until there is one. Kneeler (talk | ) We need a ensure every new user is aware of the MoS and such. Bad articles do not a welcome wiki make. Right, time to acknowledge this. It would appear evident that you (Slice) hold existing reservations against the current system of stub removal, demonstrated by your continued efforts to undermine the process. Attempts have been made to change it in the past and, for the first time since your tenure in the staff, the stub article statistics have thankfully reached an all-time low. Since your last forum topic there have been attempts to update the policy, including a scheme to adopt these unwanted articles, but I find myself repeating what was said over a year ago. You seem downright unwilling to acknowledge the necessity of stub deletion. On the contrary, there exists a clear set of regulations for marking a stub in that a page should conform to the MoS requirements and contain 2000 bytes of data. As such, these are the only two cast-iron requirements. Each article is individually screened before the stub template is added. The page history of each article is then checked before it is deleted after a two week time period. Such requirements are tremendously lenient. As demonstrated every day, newly-created pages can be written within a matter of hours that surpass the stub threshold. Realistically, it should not take much longer than two hours to elevate a page's content beyond this requirement once it is tagged. It's not really a question of users not knowing what to do once a page is tagged, more a question of whether or not they still pay heed to this wiki during that time and bother to fix it. That being said, a Stub marker is not necessarily a page's death sentence. As ChineseLegolas asserts, this policy can definitely be bolstered and additions to the stub template can only be considered progressive. In regards to improving the existing model of deletion, I am open-minded. I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with CL here. The bulletpoints raised above are all progressive ideas that I would be interested in adding to the existing policy. They would certainly clear up a lot of confusion and misconception amongst new users. Your issue, however, Slice, doesn’t seem to be with the actual process of stub removal. Instead, what you have presented here seems like more of an argument to entirely abandon the process of stub deletion in favor of working to restore old, unfinished articles from the bygone CBW of yesteryear. While this can, in part, be seen as humanitarian effort to preserve the site’s history, such a revision of the stub policy would be entirely uncalled for and I cannot think of any scenario in which it would be feasible. As I’m sure you are aware, many of the old content creators have left this site in favor of other ventures, leaving behind a legacy of unfinished pages and notoriously short articles. Responsibility to restore these articles and bring them to convey the wealth of information that they were intended to should not fall upon the shoulders of staff members individually policing every page they encounter. In this scenario, a stub policy is absolutely necessary so as to ensure a standard of quality is maintained across the wiki. There exist loopholes that allow a page to remain intact if it is below 2000 bytes on condition that it is either a Kanohi, Weapon, or other Object-themed article. Deleting pages under 2000 bytes that fit neither of these categories is entirely justifiable. Moving the pages off of the mainspace can hardly be considered a valid answer to this problem. As I'm sure you are aware, it would require a lot of effort to move them with no assurance that the page creator will return to finish his work. While it would preserve the article, it does not possess the likeness of a lasting solution. The adoption policy is a much better alternative. Additionally, I don't much appreciate your assumption that the current deletion policy drives off new users. An unspoken rule amongst the administrative staff is to offer a certain degree of leniency towards new users in this regard, giving them more time to get their page in order or offering help when necessary. I know that I certainly try to do this whenever possible and there is no mad scramble to ''take out the trash that I am aware of amongst my fellow administrators. During my tenure I don't think I have encountered a single instance of a staff member instantly slapping a Stub or Wikify notice on a new user's page and, if I did witness this drive somebody away, I would be offering stern words to that staff member. If you can provide a testimony from one such user who has been driven away as a consequence of the Stub policy, then I encourage you to bring him forward. If not, then I don't consider this a worthwhile criticism. Just a vague generalization. And this, Slice, is where I think your argument loses a lot of its momentum. You rely so heavily off of broad, sweeping assumptions that only half-fit the situation. I've seen this crop up a couple of times in your recent campaign for renewal and over previous years. You have been out of touch with the wiki for so long that you have entirely failed to acknowledge the steps that have been taken in your absence, such as the criteria mentioned above by CL and the Adoption policy that has been unmentioned in this forum until now. Users are more than welcome to contribute or even adopt such pages under the latest policy guidelines, but the fact that pages continue to be deleted even with this safety net in place serves only as evidence that the userbase has no interest in restoring them. You are alone in this endeavor. It is the charge principally of the article’s original creator to raise their page beyond the stub threshold. Failure to do so should not require staff members to move their content out of the mainspace, where it can be preserved like an endangered mammal. In summation, I cannot support this radical call to action against the existing stub process. ChineseLegolas’ proposed alterations to the template seem entirely constructive and I can assure you will be seriously considered for implementation into policy during the next staff meeting. I am not entirely defending the system and I acknowledge that it has its share of creases that need to be ironed out, but attempts to cease stub deletion seem downright unnecessary to me, especially since the page adoption policy is already in effect. Thanks for that response. I suppose I am alone in this, and that I am making the wrong assumptions because I'm out of touch. This thread was made out of some idea of righting my past mistakes, but it seems that's not necessary. You haven't completely changed my mind, but enough that I'll leave this subject alone. Kneeler (talk | ) 17:40, April 27, 2016 (UTC) I'm glad to hear that. Your intentions are noble, I'm sure, but there are bigger concerns afoot. Perhaps it would be best to familiarize yourself with the page adoption policy. Bob's reply is an instant win. Sorry, 'bout that, Slice. [[User:ToaGonel|'Gonel']] [[User Talk:ToaGonel|'was']] [[User:ToaGonel/Saga Guide|'here']] on 01:10, April 29, 2016 (UTC) Can't argue when your get answered with an 8-paragraph essay. Guess I'm just not letting this go quite yet. The definition of a stub posted above of 2,000 bytes just seems too strict to me. I'd like to suggest that it be cut to at least half that, and that the current rules be interpreted less rigidly or changed. Here's my text wall: Let's compare this site to Wikipedia, which has no strict definition for a stub. There, a stub is just a page that doesn't provide encyclopedic (or if I may, "complete") coverage of a subject. 1500 characters in the main text is used as a minimum for articles that are featured on the main page; that's already under our current guideline. We can assume that our standards can be more lenient since Wikipedia is meant to be a detailed, global encyclopedia while this is a BIONICLE fanfic wiki that frankly doesn't need to be so complete or thorough in comparison. More importantly, on Wikipedia, a stub is not a preemptive marker for deletion, which it is here. (One can argue that articles can be adopted, or that owners are granted time to improve their pages, but it doesn't seem to me that either possibility is likely in most cases. Template:Adopted has no uses. Most of pages' owners are long since gone. Hence the size of the deletion log.) A stub template there means that the article needs to be expanded for completeness, which on CBW is: * not necessarily possible without adoption, since (again) the owners are likely to be gone * not as important, because a CBW article doesn't require half the info a good Wikipedia page does Let's look at a few different pages currently in the stub category and consider their "completeness". Lucane and Gakelna's Toa Team has more content in the infobox than the actual article. This is one of the "unfinished pages and notoriously short articles" you mentioned, Bob, and I agree that it serves no purpose. Antakava Nui has three paragraphs of information outside the description and infobox, about a hundred words. Your essay above was considerably longer. I don't think pages like this should be deleted offhand, because it is relatively informative and readable despite being short. Complete enough for me anyway. Breezul has plenty of content. It contains an infobox and multiple biographical sections as well as abilities and trivia. This absolutely meets minimum completeness standards, even if it doesn't quite fit the style guide. The deletion of pages like this is the reason I started this thread in the first place; it's marked for destruction for the crime of (just barely) being under two thousand bytes. I believe the use of stub templates should reflect their original purpose of "this article is too short and should be improved" rather than "this article is too short and should be improved OR ELSE". The latter can be done with a separate warning template, similar to how the current stub template is being used. I think a compromise can be reached by deleting pages that really do have no information and keeping stubs that can potentially be added to and aren't completely "useless". Stub templates can basically allow adoption of old pages, and suggest on new ones that their owners add to them, without having a penalty in two weeks as long as the article has at least some good content. Pages like Breezul aren't stubs and shouldn't be considered such; I'd like to propose a 100-word length as a guideline for what is and isn't. -- Kneeler (talk | ) 05:55, May 2, 2016 (UTC) Since most of the stubbed articles were abandoned by old users, even putting a stub template without a deletion threat will do nothing. These people couldn't care less about what happens to their pages, so why not delete them? Any user that is active will scurry to make their page meet wiki standards, as the deletion threat gives them some sense of urgency. Giving it a benign stub-template won't do anything, as the page creators are in no rush to have the page meet wiki standards, and there is a higher chance the page will be forgotten and just drift throughout the wiki. Now, onto the pages you used as examples. Breezul has very little information, just vague sentences that give us barely any info about the character. Antakava Nui also needs more information. Notice the author completely skips a common Rahi category, which is physiology. While Rahi are usually exempt from the 2,000 bytes policy, I would remove the stub if more info was added, because it's once again just vague sentences that are as shallow as a kiddy pool. These pages REALLY have no worthwhile information. With Adoption, too. This template, while haven't been used much, is still an option for anyone willing. Windfall has adopted multiple pages, and he has made them meet wiki standards and beyond, so it's a system that can work. We are just trying to maintain a certain standard. With our articles, we aim to engage the reader. We make our pages in hope that someone will read it and become interested in this character's life and where their story goes. Stub articles fail miserably at this, because there is barely any info to engage the reader. 2,000 bytes is passable, and be a quick enjoyable read, but anything lower than that is just boring and disinteresting, a page that is likely to be skipped. No one ins interested in reading these pages, so why keep them? The page should either be adopted to be more engaging, or deleted to stop wasting reader's time. I do commend you for what you are doing to try and help the wiki, Slicer. I am in full support of your revamped infoboxes and your idea of Wiki Spotlight is a brilliant one indeed. You have the best intentions in mind. But this is something I don't agree on you with. These pages serve no use to the wiki or the reader (unless adopted), so there's no point in keeping them around. [[User:Pitcat|'From']] [[User Talk:Pitcat|'The']] 12:21, May 2, 2016 (UTC) Just seems like we have different understandings of what "too short" means. I think a page with two or three short paragraphs may not be worth keeping, but many deleted articles have far more content than that. Short pages shouldn't necessarily be disallowed on this wiki; are we Bohrok, that we must clean it all? I simply don't believe that anything under 2,000 bytes is by definition unable to "engage the reader". No, a page like Breezul isn't the best, but many longer articles are also filled with sentences "as shallow as a kiddy pool". Deletion should not be based on sentence quality but on whether there is any info at all, which in many cases there is. The page in question was at least clearly thought out, and I don't think it merits an immediate deletion. Looks like I'm very much alone in this though. Guess I have stronger reservations about this policy than anyone else, and I'm the one who started it in the first place. -- Kneeler (talk | ) 16:19, May 2, 2016 (UTC) Indeed, it would seem that way. I'm not sure what I can add to this that I haven't already said above. I thought my last comment addressed most if not all of these issues quite well. I want to think that the policy can be improved and I'm always open to suggestion. But a lot of what you (Slice) use these forums to do is complain about the existing policy and suggest entirely unfeasible alternatives to deletion. While these ideas are probably from a noble desire to improve pages, they're entirely unwarranted and I think it's doubtful that they will ever be considered, especially since you are just about the only user gunning for any kind of reform. As far as I'm concerned, the Stub policy is one of the few policies that we actually have working for us at the moment. There is no need to go about radically changing it and mess around with moving pages off the mainspace or adding another bureaucratic Stub/Delete template after a stub notice has expired. That would just be time-consuming and unwise. The policy shall stand. I'm sorry but it looks like you've been unsuccessful in this endeavor. I'd say that's the end of the matter but I'm sure I'll see you again in another year and a half though. So I will instead wish you better luck next time. Yeah, guess I might deserve that. My stubborn argumentativeness must be annoying. If no one else has anything to add, I will leave this alone. But still gonna start trying to improve stub articles if that'll help keep them from being deleted. -- Kneeler (talk | ) 19:01, May 2, 2016 (UTC) Coming out of retirement to say: 10/10 debate. Not sure I agree with you on this particular issue, Slice, but I'm all in favour of a comprehensive reevaluation of CBW's policies as an extension of this debate. Sounds like, to me, like the logical next step towards strengthening CBW on the whole, at least in a nitty-gritty, technical sense. A complete, thorough policy review is something I would have liked to have happened in my time on the staff, so I'd implore something of the sort to happen now. http://images.wikia.com/custombionicle/images/d/d4/VamprahSymbol.JPG [[User talk:Chicken Bond|'Welcome']] [[w:c:custombionicle:Journeys of Darkness|'to']] [[w:c:custombionicle:Punishment|'the']] [[w:c:custombionicle:Evils Unbound|'Fezpedia!']] http://images.wikia.com/custombionicle/images/5/55/PohatuSymbol.JPG